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jbernardo writes "After all the indie, multi-platform (including 4 for android) and DRM free releases, the latest Humble Bundle release is a polarizing one. It features non-indie games, it is Windows only, and the games are saddled with DRM. There is already a very vocal discussion on the Humble Bundle Google+ thread, but it seems it is selling well."

I have a Windows computer, and value wise this may be the best bundle yet, but I feel it is against the spirit of the bundle and am not chipping in, if they don't do another one before xmas, my big donation one is going strait towards a charity.

I haven't played all of the games, but I will say that SR3 was the only game (*ever*) that I enjoyed enough to actually buy the DLC. More than that, I didn't feel gypped when I bought it, because it added several hours of gameplay. I especially liked the Genki Bowl missions, but the Weird Science series is hilarious. I'd say that game alone is worth more than the average price at the moment for the bundle.

It's a matter of personal preference, as always, but I don't find the DRM on Steam to be all that onero

I think I'm also going to allocate zero to the "Humble Tip" in at least the next few future bundles because of this.

That is an awful thing for you to do. THQ is basically giving their games away for Child's Play & the Red Cross & you're going to punish the vehicle they happened to use? They didn't mislead you in any way & word of mouth from this bundle will help bring attention to future *indie* bundles which can only be a good thing for those developers.

THQ is in serious financial trouble. This is a bundle of their old games that have essentially zero sales at this point, with an added bonus of "if you do pay a decent sum, you may get a not-so-old game too".

$5.70 (at the time of writing) is such a "decent" sum for 7 pretty good games - even if they are older. Heck, Blizzard is still asking $30 for their battle chests of Diablo & Starcraft - this is a steal in comparison. Though could also be a ploy to increase DLC sales since none of that is included.

You're missing the major difference. These are old games, that simply do not have any sales any more. At the same time, THQ is trying to sell sequels to these games (such as darksiders 2).

To THQ, this is a zero risk strategy. The assets on sale are of minimal to nonexistent value. At the same time, they're selling sequels right now for decent prices, sequels that in spite of proper major marketing push didn't sell all that well.

When small indies peddle their stuff for "whatever you want to pay for it", it's

I don't think anyone's calling out THQ - they made an amazing offer. The complaints are specifically toward Humble specifically for going back on the very things for which fans were most impressed with them. I'm not too happy about that myself, but I'm sure that they didn't take the decision to do this lightly. THQ - an excellent developer and publisher - is having problems right now, and Humble chose to burn a bit of their ample supply of good karma to help them. It means we can get some THQ games cheaply now and hopefully boost THQ enough that they can continue making games in the future.

Agreed. Here's a quote from a Humble Bundle rep from an article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

When THQ expressed interest in our pay what you want plus charity model and willingness to let us bundle so many top tier titles, we couldn’t believe it at first,” the rep explained to RPS. “But trying to turn up our noses at this epic chance to make gamers happy and help worthy causes like Child’s Play and the American Red Cross could only have been defined as arrogance. We had to try and we were extremely curious to see what would happen.

I agree with the "arrogance" observation. Childs Play & the American Red Cross are real, tangible causes, and as others mentioned, you can cause your entire donation to go to them and none of it to THQ or even HumbeBundle, if you like. The nerd rage against this bundle is completely inappropriate.

From my point of view, as long as they also keep doing the humble indie bundles, I have no problem with them throwing in partnered bundles like this. In fact, I quite enjoy them.

I think the reasoning behind this is that THQ has been reduced to a level that they could be considered either a charity or an indie-level company, with their current financial situation. They are really in a tough spot, and desperately need cash.

At least they don't call it "THQ Indie Bundle" like some other big publisher named their Steam bundle a while ago (I'm not going to name that publisher... OK, it was EA)

THQ is one of the most fair and square publishers out there. They're not scared of new ideas and new IPs, and they don't seem to bind the developers with unfair contracts (not to my knowledge at least). They support their games for ages and a new DLC doesn't mean a 'tiny map-pack for $20'. Keeping them in the game means more competition to the likes of Activision-666-Blizzard and EA (Evil Antichrist) and this is a good enough reason for me to pay them a fair share for their games.

And to answer the three major concerns everyone seems to have:Yes - it's DRM locked, just like practically every single AAA title in the world. I don't understand why would anyone expect anything different this time around.No - it's not multi-platform, because they'd probably spend more money porting those old titles to linux/mac, than they'd ever make from this sale.No - it's not indie, but does it have to be? You have the option to give all your money to the charity if you don't like the idea of supporting a big publisher, so what's the problem? The spirit of the bundle is to encourage gamers to support charities by offering them games in return - to me all the boxes are ticked here, and even more so considering the class of the games in question.

When did selling games for charity turn into a "Down with the man, FOSSies unite!" kind of thing anyway? The first ones didn't have DRM because News Flash, they were made by dirt poor indies who could afford to buy any DRM. I mean you'd think people would be happy, bigger names mean more sales which means more money to a fricking kid's charity but nope, god fucking forbid that it goes against our fricking religion.

Now for those of us who don't care about GPL religious debates, i have a question...what if you already have one of the games on Steam? will it fuck with the ones you have, get put in the gift pile, just don't count, what? because me and my boys already have SR 3 with all the DLC (great game BTW, fun as hell) but I'd hate to give more than the average just to have it screw up all my DLC, so if anybody knows what actually happens if you already have one of the games I'd really like to know, as giving money to a charity for kids while giving the boys some good games does sound nice. if the game just don't count? Totally fine with that, just don't want to lose all my DLC.

Well, the Windows group has always been the lowest average in Humble Bundles. The Linux group, and to a lesser extent, the Mac group, have always pushed the bundle average up. So, the results aren't much of a surprise.

I can't imagine the effort of porting all those games to other platforms. Give 'em a year, and it could probably be done. I'm sure THQ couldn't wait that long, though.

I'm angry for several reasons. But the biggest reason is that I gave the Humble Bundle brand name a lot of free advertising and word of mouth because I expected them to always be DRM-free and cross-platform. Them choosing not to be feels like a betrayal and a cheat because they're taking all that good will I helped them create to sell something that is at cross-purposes to the reason I helped them create this good will.

I'm also angry because I spent a bunch of money, always above the average, often significantly so. I spent it not just because I thought the games were worth it. I spent it because I believed in Humble Bundle and what I thought they were trying to accomplish. It was another way for me to invest in the brand.

If they had done something like this under a different name I wouldn't be angry at all. Create another brand "Pay What You Can" bundles or whatever and market your stuff under that brand if it doesn't fit the Humble Bundle image. Then I wouldn't feel like all the work and money I put into supporting the Humble Bundle brand was a waste.

For an alternative viewpoint, Hey! A bundle with more games I want to play than usual. Delivered on a platform I like with DRM I've decided I can live with. Bought this bundle...haven't bought them all.

To be honest, the Linux versions of some of the most interesting games had bugs (from the top of my head, I remember Cortex Command, which was a blast but had a pre-alpha level of stability, and Torchlight's "faceless" bug). The humble bundle people recognized this, issued a statement they were working on a fix and... nothing happened. I felt betrayed a coupe of times and vowed to think long and hard before purchasing another bundle. Sure, a lot of the games were great and worked just fine, but if you sell

I'm in the same boat. This is BS I spent a lot of money supporting them and time toting HB and the DRM-free Linux compatible games and now they're going to pull this. They won't be getting any more money out of me and can kiss my usual $50 donation goodbye. As well, I'm planing to actively protest them now by making sure to post everywhere I can what a bunch of sell outs they are.

The support of Free, non-DRM software and indie developers is the charity, chief. The other guys are just icing on the cake. Not only have they dropped the indies and dropped the no-drm requirements, but they've they've dropped support of the EFF too!

If a new group had come along with a "support struggling AAA studios" charity then we might laugh, but they wouldn't be denounced for compromising their ideals.

Your anger is somewhat justifiable. This sets a precedent. Now, other game publishers, who may want to use Humble Bundle, will not feel the need to put in an effort to make their games cross-platform.

Having said that, I'm grateful to Humble Bundle for pushing their cross-platform philosophy as much as they did. It's efforts like that which provide the initial step in generating a flood of games supporting Linux. I'll keep on supporting them, in future bundles, when they once more release cross platform

I gave the Humble Bundle brand name a lot of free advertising and word of mouth because I expected them to always be DRM-free and cross-platform....I helped them create this good will.

Are you suggesting that your celebrity endorsement of them counts as "a lot of free advertising" and "helping them create this good will?" I think you overestimate your celebrity status. You have 525 people following you on google plus. Not that you would have a right to feel betrayed even if you had 11k people following you, but... well... check your ego. They don't owe you for saying nice things about them to a handful of people.

Does all your moral outrage help you sleep at night? Cause I can think of at least a handful of problems in the world far more severe and worth getting worked up about than the "injustice" served to you by a privately-owned corporation violating some imagined sense of principle you seem to possess by partnering with a publicly-owned corporation to offer you a bunch of existing games that were only ever developed for one platform, all to help out charities. I mean, those bastards, they might PROFIT from th

Sure it's Steam on Windows only. But considering it has the biggest market share, it's quite ok to do so when you want to raise money for a charity.

Every time I hear someone justify a business decision with "Since the majority of the money is here, it'll be a great idea to just completely ignore all other sources of revenue!" gives me a horrific twitch.

What is it? Are they actually teaching this in business school nowadays?

What makes you think he's going to buy it? Oh, how embarassing! For a moment I forgot it's a crime to express yourself in online discussions. We serfs must either speak well of a product or not speak at all, lest our the worst happen. Our benevolent corporate masters might even lose potential profit - the most important profit of all - if we aren't more careful with our sinful tongues.

"Pay what you want, DRM-free, cross-platform and helps charity."That's been a tagline of all the bundles so far, IIRC. It's not just some implicit assumption on his part. You'll note how they had to contort it for the THQ bundle.

It's no surprise that people are angry when the Humble Bundle guys diverge this much from the image they have built up for their product. This is brand dilution; people came in expecting the usual and were disappointed.

There have been four android-only bundles. That's not any more cross-platform than PC only.

You are very mistaken. The games in the Android bundles were available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Android.

This bundle is useless for a large portion of regular Humble Bundle buyers. Apparently they're raking in cash, good for them. Maybe this is a good direction for them, but they're risking the loyality of their Mac and Linux supporters.

To be fair, that doesn't say "we sell nothing but bundles of cross-platform, DRM-free video games...". McDonalds sells Big Macs. They also sell orange juice. Heck, they'll sell you a cup of water for the price of a cup though you won't find it on the menu.

Publishers generally make far more money than developers and I don't begrudge Wolfire one bit for making money. I don't think that making money from the Humble Bundle means that they've sold out either - they took a stab at doing something new, and something that originally had some principles, and they struck it big in the process. Good for them.

Selling out is when you give up the principles for the sake of money. That's new for Wolfire.

But...but...he's THE Eric Hopper. How dare you not see how important he is. He practically single-handedly made the Humble Bundle what it is today. Not the founders, or the companies involved, or the people hired to port games, or the 100s of thousands of other donators. Nope, the Humble Bundle is what it is only because of Eric Hopper.

No, you made some posts that a couple of dozen people probably ever saw. On the other hand, you are acting as if you were the major driving force of popularizing the bundle when probably a 1000th of one percent or less of all donators ever heard of you.

They helped build that brand with my help. I provided them tons of free advertising and word of mouth because of the principles I thought they upheld. They're making a mockery of my effort.

Get over yourself. You're a nobody that had negligible effect on their success.

Yes. I made a post a couple of dozen people saw. I talked personally to 5 or 10 people.

And there are thousands of people like me. We each made our little contributions. Each of us helped make the Humble Bundle brand what it was. It wasn't just me, but I helped. And so did they. Many of us our upset.

Thousands of negligible effects add up to a real effect. I think my anger is justified. So is theirs.

Well said. That's how I feel, too. The only inexcusable action, here, IMHO, was removing the EFF as a charity option. If I'm supporting DRM, even if it's a light version, I want the EFF to take part of my money and fight for my right to circumvent it as I see fit.

It's still pay what you want. It still lets you send a portion to charity. What exactly is the problem? Is it just that you are ideologically against big publishers and are upset that not everyone agrees with you?

RMS was right about everything he said in the last 30 years or so. Many many things he said and people called insanity back them are reality now. Server sided DRM, like Steam, was one of them. He may not be a good example of sociability or even personal hygiene, but his ideas are solid, unlike yours.

"Humble bundle" is more or less in the same mental category as I would place "brand names".

It is a specific brand of name your price software offering, estalished on a set of core ideals.

It was those core ideals that made Humbe Bundle stand out from other name your price offerings.

This is not an offering true to the humble bundle ideals. It should not be labeled as being a humble bundle offering, unless they strip off the DRM, and FOSS the game afterwards, like the previous closed source games in the past did.

Unless they do BOTH of those things, this is an unacceptable offering, akin to opening a box of heineken and finding that it had been instead filled with old milwuakee.

People support the humble bundle brand for a reason. Throwing away that foundation to placate AAA studio developers is a betrayal of the user base, and a slap in the face to prior bundle participant developers.

It is a specific brand of name your price software offering, estalished on a set of core ideals.

Maybe that was true for the first few bundles. But they've since branched out into releasing music and books. They sold Crayon Physics Deluxe without source code, and probably other games too.

People support the humble bundle brand for a reason.

But not always the same reason. I've supported the Humble Bundles from the beginning, always paying several times the average, and keeping all my keys neatly sorted in KeePass. I've never played half the games, but I support it anyway. Not because I care about DRM (so long as its inobtrusive, I don't) or open source, but because I support the pay-what-you-want-and-give-some-to-charity model.

This happens. Little communities expand, and become more ideologically diverse. You shouldn't be so angry towards your fellow supporters. We give just as much as you do.

When you become too ideological diverse you have no ideology at all. All the music and books sold were DRM free, thus following the same set of rules established by the brand. This is the first time they deviated from it, and betrayed all the loyal supporters they acquired. Many won't go back there to buy again, rest assured, and will stop recommending it. The end result is still to be seen, but I hope they sink.

The response from the Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham is this [arstechnica.com]:They're experimenting. They're trying to see if they can make the HIB system work for bigger games. But this is in no way a guaranteed change in how it will work in the future - they fully plan to continue the DRM-free, cross-platform indie game bundles, possibly even another one this year.

My own addendum:If the experiment is a success, they'll likely be able to push harder in the future to force their partners to remove the DRM and/or port to Mac/Linux. But since this was the first one, they had to compromise a bit. And even then they could only get a publisher that's nearly dead and is desperate for PR and sales. Given how much backlash that's brought them from some sectors*, they almost definitely won't do the next one just like this. At least, not under the Humble Bundle name.

* I say "some sectors" because the gaming world is actually pretty excited about this one. They don't really care about the lack of Mac/Linux support or the DRM. It's rather clear that this bundle was aimed at them, not at anti-DRM crusaders or Mac/Linux fans.

Bullshit. There have been several Humble Bundles which didn't even include games (e.g. Music & eBooks), and most of the games in previous bundles haven't been FOSS. They've also done publisher/developer specific bundles in the past (e.g. Frozenbyte, Introversion).

I honestly have no clue what your problem with this is, as none of the things you talk about have been true for previous bundles. The only real difference is that in the past many of the items were DRM free, but even that's not been 100%, and many of us (myself included) just used the steam keys anyway so that wasn't really significant.

This is raising money for charity and/or THQ - I have no problem with that. If you don't like it, don't buy it. End of story.

There have been several Humble Bundles which didn't even include games (e.g. Music & eBooks)

And in addition, the eBooks one (which I purchased) had some pretty not-in-any-imaginable-way-humble-category-level authors. Neil Gaiman and John Scalzi, to name but two. The genres in which they publish aren't what passes for literary mainstream, but within those genres they both are most definitely major AAA-authors.

I really don't see the reason for the hate on this THQ bundle. THQ is almost bankrupt. Helping a struggling company to maybe, with luck, not disappear (or, worse, become part of EA), isn't evil by any means.

Ok, how about buying a carton of milk, and finding orange juice inside?

Buy a bottle of champaign and discover it is really white zinfendel?

The point is that simply because "its a liquid, and you can drink it", that does not make it interchangeable. Ordering a porche and getting a ford festiva delivered is NOT how you treat customers. They are both cars, and they both drive from point a to point b. But saying they are the same is disingeuous to say the least.

THQ has been struggling, so they're trying something new. That's a good thing. If you don't want to buy it, don't. I did, as did many of my friends, and I'm quite happy with it.

Exactly. If this helps save THQ, it helps maintain the diversity of the marketplace, similar to how helping indie developers find success makes it possible to enjoy games we'd never experience otherwise.

Personally, I like the Saints Row series and wouldn't want someone like EA buying THQ and taking it over. This bundle is a great deal and money well-spent IMO.

I fail to see a problem here, if you have an issue with this just send everything to charity. Personally the way I view it is this way, the more money they raise for charity the better, it's to help the less fortunate after all. This time around it is for Child's Play and America Red Cross both respectable organizations which I would be proud to donate to.

So yes if you have a "Screw You" type of mentality towards DRM and refuse to give them money for it, go right ahead. You can still buy said games and just donate everything to charity and deny the company who produced said games money.

This company is near bankrupt. We can all hate because we're from a subculture that supports individualism and new startups for games. However, this company is offering us games for basically CHARITY. Also, they're a company that needs these funds to continue on after doing bad in the market. Games like Saints Row and Company of Heroes are great games, DRM or no DRM, If you're really idealistic, you would be opposed to other humble bundles which they use Steam WHICH IS DRM. Grow up guys and support THQ for their work.

Listen up guys! This is not a bad thing, this is the time to send the other publishers a message that giving gamers options and good deals is beneficial to business. While I understand the disagreement some of you have with these games being DRM, I for one will not get angry unless HumbleBundle stops offering DRM free and Indie titles in favor of these. I am happy with them offering both and if we can encourage more, it will help generate some solid numbers that can help break the illusion of whether or not DRM is providing the businesses an advantage when they see DRM free indie games generating respectable or hopefully more income than DRM'd games.

We should applaud a company for taking a step in the right direction not lambasting them, even though it seems suspect. Companies follow the money and if they can make more money by dressing their CEO's in clown suits instead of a suit and tie then that is what is going to happen. We have the chance to show the other companies how much of a success using services like GOG.com, KickStarter.com, and HumbleBundle.com can be to their revenue stream and they will be paying attention to that more than anything! They only include DRM because they think it actually protects them, but in cases like this, it might be in our best interests to offer a little breathing room!

I can understand how some of the idealists are upset.. But frankly I could care less.. I've bought a few humble bundles now and the main reason is because a portion of the proceeds (or all if you wish) goes to charity. I also like this pay what you can type model. Quite honestly I haven't played many of the games but if they look semi interesting i'll by them on the off chance I will.

This deal seems to be the best value yet, so I paid more than I normally would.

"I have purchased several Humble Bundles over the years and also promoted it to others. I bought some where I never evenplayed most of the games. Why? Because I believed in what you were doing. But I think you have betrayed your mission with this THQ stuff:

* It is not multi-platform, leaving Linux and Mac users out in the cold.* It is not direct download, eaving non-Steam users out in the cold.* It is not from indie developers.* It is not DRM-free.

I am very disappointed in what you did, and, to me, it severely taints your name and brand. I think you should be ashamed and hopefully you will get back on track."

"I have purchased several Humble Bundles over the years and also promoted it to others. I bought some where I never evenplayed most of the games. Why? Because I believed in what you were doing. But I think you have betrayed your mission with this THQ stuff:

* It is not multi-platform, leaving Linux and Mac users out in the cold.* It is not direct download, eaving non-Steam users out in the cold.* It is not from indie developers.* It is not DRM-free.

I am very disappointed in what you did, and, to me, it severely taints your name and brand. I think you should be ashamed and hopefully you will get back on track."

Not to nit-pick, but you may come off as slightly dismissive in that e-mail.

Did you consider the cost and manpower it would take to port those games to Mac/Linux? Did you take into account the infrastructure, cost and services necessary if Humble Bundle provided direct downloads for all of those games? Did you include in your estimations the fact that THQ is on the verge of bankruptcy? What do you consider an indie developer, because you don't really make that clear, either.

I've bought all the Android bundles and the first two PC bundles, because I generally like indie games (and these bundles have included quite a few gems). This bundle, however, is filled with games I feel no desire to play.

But they ARE games many other people, including most of my friends, would like to play. So I forwarded the newsletter to those friends. Chances are some will buy it (even if the ~$6 to include the extra game is too steep, $1 for the rest is damn cheap) and some will subscribe to the newsletter. Next time these hard core gamers get an offer to buy a bunch of indie games for cheap (especially for mobile), I'm sure some of them will buy it too.

This THQ deal basically gives HB lots of "free" marketing, which will likely end up benefitting future Indie bundles.

In a response to Ars, Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham assured users the company will "never stop creating Humble Indie Bundles... and the other bundle types we've successfully launched this year. But we’re also eager to see if our pay-what-you-want plus charity model meshes with critically acclaimed AAA content as well."

Graham said the new THQ bundle did not represent a permanent departure from the company's indie roots, and that the company may even release a third indie bundle this year. "This year has also been a year of many experiments for us that fall outside the traditional Humble Indie Bundle framework," Graham told us. "We’re very excited to be able to offer the gaming community a massive sale with blockbuster content and raise money for charity at the same time. We will of course continue to support indies content as a core of our business."

Regarding the lack of Mac and Linux ports this time around, Graham said plainly that, "in the case of this promotion, it would not have been possible for us to deliver this blockbuster content via other means." But Graham also promised the Humble Bundle "will not cease in our quest to bring awesome content to Mac and Linux and Android," and pointed out that the Humble eBook Bundle contained the first digital publication of Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Signal to Noise.

Pirates have been clamoring for publishers to adopt a pay-what-you-want model. THQ is trying that out as a temporary offering. It is entirely logical for them to use an existing site that specializes in pay-what-you-want temporary offers. If it works well, they might create their own platform. Expecting them to create their own platform for an experiment is absurd.

Well, it's a bit absurd for them to hope to take advantage of an existing platform while not respecting its appeal. The "Humble Bundle" brand traded on three things: 1) supporting indie game developers; 2) being DRM-free; and 3) being cross-platform Win/Mac/Linux. Afaict, this THQ bundle goes 0/3.

Really? Did the price go up? Let me check... Nope, still pay what you want.I'm guessing they got rid of the Child's Play donation... No, that's still there.Must have stopped the EFF donation.... No, that seems to be there too.

I figured it out!The people that buy the bundle are greedy, getting 6 games on Steam for as low as $1.